Twenty-six minutes later, the computer monitor flickers. The video ends. When the judge finally swings around in his chair, it is not with the kind of vigor and dispatch you might expect if he were going to dismiss us outright. The chair turns slowly, like the grinding wheels of the master it serves. I get the first glimmer that maybe we’ve bought some time.

For a while he is silent, leaning forward, elbows on his desk, steepled fingers to his chin. “I take it it’s Scarborough on this side of the table?”

“Without question,” I tell him.

“You can’t see him,” says Tuchio.

“No, but you can hear his voice,” says Quinn. “This, ah…this item on the table,” he says. “It’s only a copy.”

“As far as we know, but that may not matter,” I tell him. “The words on the page, what it says, may have intrinsic value, not necessarily in dollars but to the person who took it.”

“You mean whoever killed Scarborough.”

“We know who killed Scarborough,” says Tuchio. “He’s in the lockup downstairs, on his way back to the jail as we speak. He-”

“Humor me, Mr. Tuchio.” The judge cuts him off.

“It may not be the letter itself,” I tell Quinn. “The original, I mean, but the message it delivers-or doesn’t deliver, if it’s destroyed or disappears.”

“What are you saying?” says Quinn.

“Scarborough ignited considerable racial unrest with the current book. According to Bonguard, he was planning on going nuclear in the next book with whatever was in that letter.”

“And you think a two-hundred-year-old letter could cause that kind of an uproar?” says Quinn.

“I don’t know. But we do know a few things. Scarborough had it in his possession when he met with Ginnis over the table in that restaurant. And you saw all the furtive expressions on the justice’s face and read the transcript.”

“I’d like to see that transcript,” says Tuchio.

“And the letter wasn’t found in the hotel room after Scarborough was killed, or in his Georgetown apartment. So where did it go?”

“The item on the leather portfolio,” says Quinn.

I give him a look like, Bingo. “You saw it come out of Scarborough’s pocket. Letter paper, folded in thirds. It matches the size of the shadow,” I tell him.

“Any piece of business correspondence folded for an envelope would fit the size and shape of that shadow,” says Tuchio. “Your Honor, we’ve been all over that video. The police have seen it and listened to it. I’ve seen it and listened to it.”

“I’m surprised you had the time,” says Harry. “Since the property room delivered it to you only two days ago, after we discovered it in the police evidence locker.”

Tuchio shakes this off. He doesn’t respond.

“Is that true?” says Quinn. “The police never saw this?” He waves the transcript at him. “You never saw this or the video before charging Arnsberg?”

“I still haven’t seen that, Your Honor.” Tuchio means the transcript. “I’d like to know where they got it, and for that matter whether it’s even reliable, because you can’t hear a damn thing on the video.”

“Where did you get it?” Quinn looks at me.

“We have a certified declaration,” says Harry.

As Harry is fishing this from his briefcase, I tell Quinn, “We got it from a man named Theodore Nons, Your Honor.”

“Teddy Nons.” Quinn looks at me with arched eyebrows. “I haven’t had Teddy Nons in my court since analog tapes went out.”

“Who is Teddy Nons?” says Tuchio. The judge hands him the transcript, and Tuchio starts scanning it, flipping pages.

“He’s a blind man, sightless since birth,” says the judge. “But he has an extraordinarily acute sense of hearing. He’s a qualified audio expert.”

“They say he can hear some things that dogs can’t even pick up.” Harry hands the declaration to the judge, who glances at it and sets it aside.

“Sounds like an urban legend.” Tuchio is still riffling through the transcript.

“No, you can take it to the bank,” says Quinn. “Teddy used to make the claim in newspaper ads in the local legal sheet advertising his services. Some lawyer challenged him in my courtroom, a demonstration on that very point. And Teddy beat the dog.”

Quinn is looking at the calendar on the blotter of his desk. He bites his upper lip, sucks some air through his teeth, as he dances a pencil over the blotter. “Ordinarily I wouldn’t do this, but it looks like you caught a little luck, Mr. Madriani.”

“How is that, Your Honor?”

“Monday is a holiday. Memorial Day.”

“Judge. Your Honor!”

“Relax, Mr. Tuchio. I know it gets confusing, but it’s not just about winning and losing. The world won’t come to an end if we give the defendant two more days. Today is Wednesday. The court will go dark Thursday and Friday,” says Quinn. “With the weekend and Monday, that gives you five days. Make good use of them. Come Tuesday morning you will be in my courtroom with your opening statement, ready to go. Is that understood?”

“Yes, Your Honor.” Harry and I say it in unison as he is popping the disk out of the judge’s computer.

“I wonder, could I keep the disk and the transcript over the weekend?” says Quinn. “I’ll make a copy of the transcript for Mr. Tuchio.”

Harry looks at me.

“Sure.” Something tells me there will be a lot of black robes huddled around Quinn’s computer between now and the weekend.

He smiles. “Then I wouldn’t waste any more of your precious time here,” he says.

Harry and I are out the door.

22

They say bad news comes in threes. I believe it. When Tuchio rested his case, we didn’t know it, but messages were waiting for us at the office. The process servers in New York and Washington both missed their last two marks. The only one they’ve managed to serve is Scarborough’s editor, James Aubrey.

According to her office, Trisha Scott left on a sudden vacation that afternoon, off to Europe for the next three weeks, and Bonguard just as quickly disappeared somewhere out on the road with a client. His secretary wasn’t sure when he would be back. She asked our man if he wanted to leave a message. First rule of process serving: When you’re trying to tag somebody with a subpoena, you don’t leave voice mail.

Ten o’clock Wednesday night, Harry and I are trying to catch some Z’s crushed into coach seats like steerage on a packed flight somewhere over the Southwest. I’m learning more than I ever wanted to know about the island of Curaçao. For one thing, if you want to get there, you have to slingshot across the country to Miami before you can even start to head south-almost fourteen hours in transit, and this is one of the quicker flights. I’m beginning to think that this island is a remote dark hole in the earth, off the beaten path, a place where a person might go if he wanted to hide out for a while, perhaps dodge the scent of scandal.

In the office, going out the door, Harry fielded a phone call from Harv Smidt, the crusty newspaper reporter. He has been dogging the trial from behind the scenes since it started. Harv only occasionally graces the courtroom with his presence. He has brought in two younger reporters from the L.A. newsroom of his paper. While they are in court, Smidt is humping up and down the back corridors talking to people in offices-judges, bailiffs, clerks, anybody with a little excess dirt to share. He wanted a quote from Harry about some historic mystery letter that was supposed to be on Scarborough when he was killed.

When Harry swallowed his tongue and went mum, Smidt told him to get on his computer and go online. Harv’s story was already running on the national AP wire, setting forth every little detail we had mentioned in chambers, starting with rumors about Ginnis and including the backgrounders on the J letter from Trisha Scott and Bonguard.

This would explain why they both disappeared. You would, too, if your phone started lighting up with calls from every reporter in the Western Hemisphere. This is what happens when you start sharing videos and transcripts with the curious in the courthouse.